Wassledine willow harvest

Sorting willow for length

We’ve started cutting willow at last. At this early stage, as usual, it feels like an ordeal, but we’ve made some progress this week and the weather has been fairly kind – just an hour of rain so far.

 The quality seems good this year although in some varieties quantities are low. This is the year for a large input of nitrogen.

 

Although cutting, sorting, bundling and labelling willow is hard work, with some good weather and thermal underwear, it can be a time to think, enjoy the winter sunshine and watch out for passing birds – lots of fieldfares today, three little egrets, and a buzzard a red kite on Monday. It’s the company of a wren that I always see and more often hear, that I value too, that and the sound of the Kelly Kettle boiling.

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